Page 51 of Just What She Needed

After a moment to think it over, she nodded slowly. "Maybe you're right. Maybe it was always there, but I needed to be with someone who knew how to bring it out."

"That's understandable." He tossed the pizza crust on the pan and pulled the last slice onto his plate. "You've only ever been with one man, and you married him when you were young. Though I can't imagine why he never tried harder to find that part of you later."

"Well, you're only partly right." She bit the inside of her lip in indecision before she continued. "Todd isn't the only man I've slept with. I dated other guys before he and I hooked up."

To her relief, Rhys didn't seem to find that shocking, scandalous or slutty. In fact, he didn't react to it all and seemed to take it as a matter of course. "And you still didn't know you had such a ferocious sex goddess in there?"

"Sex goddess." Rhett laughed in surprise. How different he was from the rigid, judgmental, holier-than-thou people with whom she'd grown up. "Right. But no, we were teenagers. Be honest. When you were that age did you take the time to, er, stimulate your girlfriends like you did this afternoon with me?"

Rhys snickered. "When I was that age, no. I was too excited at having real live sex with someone other than myself."

The visual that statement conjured left Rhett speechless for a few minutes. She shook it off, so to speak, and leaned her elbows on the table. "Speaking of sex, I found one of your texts intriguing."

"Only one?" The look he sent her from under his lashes could only be described as smoldering. A delicious little shiver ran over her skin.

"Okay, all of them. But this one was...interesting. You asked me if I'd ever had sex in public."

He stopped with the pizza halfway to his mouth. "Have you?"

She titled her head with a wry look. "I just gave you a rundown on my sex life before I met you, so what do you think?"

"I'll take that as a 'no,' then."

"Very good. Have you? Had sex in public, I mean?"

A look of pure innocence transformed his face, and he pushed his plate toward her. "You're sure you don't want any more pizza?"

"I'll take that as a 'yes,' then." Rhett sat back and regarded him closely. "What would you do if I told you I wanted to fuck you right here, right now?"

In answer, Rhys slid out of the booth and came to her side. "Budge up."

In shock, she scooted across the vinyl seat and made room for him to sit beside her. He rested his arm on the back of the seat and looked at her, eyebrows raised in expectation.

Oh dear God, what was she going to do now? She hadn't been lying when she said he brought out a side of her with which she was unfamiliar. That side just got her into a situation she had no idea how to handle, and she stared back at him in utter confusion.

Rhys burst into laughter. "I'm so sorry, Rhett, but you should see your face right now."

Unamused, she stared at him as he lowered his head to the table and actually guffawed. Even when his arm dropped from the back of the seat to her shoulders, she remained stiff, arms crossed over her chest.

"Baby, I'm sorry." His embrace tightened and pulled her close, though errant snickers still shook him. "I was only laughing at the expression on your face, not at you. You looked so shocked."

Rhett relaxed against him and allowed a small smile to pull at the corners of her mouth. "Okay. I'm sure I did look shocked, because I sure felt that way."

Rhys kissed her temple and put his lips close to her ear. "You asked what I'd do, and I did it. If you want me, I'm here." He pulled back and grinned. "But just for future reference, a restaurant booth isn't an optimal place for it."

"How do you—"

He pressed a quick kiss to her lips, silencing her question.

About halfway home, Rhett had her fill of the constant pinging and vibrating of Rhys's cell phone. "Are they still yakking about the car?"

"Probably." Rhys pulled the phone from his pocket and glanced down at it as he came to a stop at a red light. "Yeah, the bloody car. I hate to turn the phone off in case Dax or Sienna needs to reach me, and I can't remove myself from this fucking group thing, even though I asked them to take my name off."

"You want out of it?" Rhett held out her hand. "Give me the phone."

"Be my guest." He passed it to her with alacrity.

As she took it, the phone chirped again with a message from Parker that read I'm telling you. Ferrari! Rhett opened the message and scrolled back to the very beginning where she discovered Ross Kellum started the whole thing. She closed the text, opened the contact list, and placed a call to Illicit's lead guitarist.